Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Boston marathon bombing

I
did most of the thinking and research for my series on the cardinal virtues as
part of the work on a just counterterrorism model that I am developing, a model
similar to the one that just war theory offers for warfighting but designed to
address the unique problems of counterterrorism. The anecdote with which the
second installment on courage begins (to be posted Thursday) now seems timelier
than ever.

First,
some good news. Terrorism is not an intractable problem. Indeed, all terror groups
end and most of them lose. In part, terror groups suffer defeat because these groups
adopt terrorism, whether as a strategy (big picture) or tactic (approach to a
specific situation), out of desperation and weakness.

Second,
some more good news. The degree to which terrorists achieve victory depends
largely upon how the people who are attacked respond rather than directly upon
anything that the terrorists may or may not do. Terrorists attack innocent
third parties, hoping to achieve a political victory. Terrorists aim to win
that political victory through attacks that produce progress toward their instrumental
goals of revenge, renown, and retaliation.

The
9/11 attacks illustrate this dynamic. Although the death toll and economic
costs of the attacks were terrible, the greater costs were self-inflicted.
These include precipitous drops in stock prices unwarranted by the economic
effect of the attacks, the pervasive fear of flying that paralyzed much of
American society, and the overreaction of invading and occupying Afghanistan and
Iraq at a cost of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

A
community that exhibits courage (i.e., refuses to be terrorized), prudence
(adopts proven, affordable defensive measures), justice (insists on upholding
the rule of law in its counterterrorism efforts), and temperance (e.g., refusing
demands for immediate revenge) not only refuses to cede victory to terrorists but
also turns apparent defeat into victory.

In
the aftermath of the bombings on the Boston, those injured deserve our prayers.
Our nation deserves our courage, prudence, justice, and temperance. Whoever the
perpetrators were, deserve defeat. Terrorism is always immoral.